This invention relates to lubricating apparatus, and more particularly to a so-called divisional lubricant feeder assembly.
The invention involves an improvement on divisional lubricant feeder assemblies of the type shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,298,460 now owned by the assignee of this invention. This type of assembly comprises a plurality of so-called divider valves, which are lubricant metering valves, removably mounted on a base, the base being formed to provide valve inlet passaging including a manifold for supplying lubricant under pressure from a source to the valves, valve outlet passaging for delivery of metered charges of lubricant from the valves, and valve interconnection passaging for interconnecting the valves for operation of the valves one after another to deliver metered charges of lubricant through the outlet passages in sequence. While such assemblies have been widely used and are satisfactorily operative, they are of such construction that a different base is needed for assemblies of different numbers of divider valves, i.e., bases of different length and with different passaging are needed for mounting different numbers of divider valves. This requires producing and maintaining an inventory of all the different size bases such as may be required. Also, while it is desirable to form passaging in a base by drilling operations, it is difficult accurately and efficiently to drill long holes for the lengths of passaging required at least in the longer bases.